Traveling the world, one bite at a time

My Creations

Most kitchens back in Italy are quite small, including mine when I lived in Florence. This made it very difficult for me to create innovative dishes since I don’t have the kitchen space or the equipment for it. So now that I’m home, I take full advantage of my American sized kitchen! I also started a food journal where I would jot down ideas of food I wanted to create with sketches and descriptions. My strength in cooking is obviously Italian cuisine since I have been studying it for over three years. However, due to my upbringing I tend to have a Californian/New American twist on all my dishes. These are all dishes I created on my own or took inspiration from other recipes, enjoy!

What I also love about being home, besides my huge kitchen, is that California has a plethora of available ingredients that don’t exist in Italy. One of my favorite grocery stores, Berkeley Bowl, has literally every ingredient you can imagine and more! Every time I go there I see new kinds of vegetables, fruits, meats, and seafood. Sometimes it can even get overwhelming with the amount of items that they carry in the store. However, having accessibility to diverse ingredients is every cooks dream! I feel fortunate that I am able to take my ideas and turn them into reality by creating edible pieces of art on a plate.

Be sure to check out other dishes here that I created from my days at culinary school.

Meet Vanessa

Ciao tutti! I'm a California girl that packed up my bags in 2011 and moved half way across the world to Florence, Italy where I lived for 4 years. My passion is food and to learn everything there is about the gastronomic world!